


So The Spring May Light The Gorge

by nothing_rhymes_with_ianto



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, R Ship Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-18
Updated: 2013-11-18
Packaged: 2018-01-01 23:22:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1049792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nothing_rhymes_with_ianto/pseuds/nothing_rhymes_with_ianto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They are only friends, but Grantaire is sad and Grantaire is strange and he only wants a friend and Floréal is willing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	So The Spring May Light The Gorge

**Author's Note:**

> For R Ship Week. I wanted to try my hand at Grantaire/Floréal.

She is draped in pale purple robes, and she is beautiful. She is also not used to standing still for quite this long; she generally models for the amateur pupils whose sessions are short and punctuated by frequent breaks. This time, though, it is the more experienced session she is posing for, and therefore she has been standing still for far longer than she is accustomed to.

Despite being seasoned and serious students of Gros, many of the men at the easels seem far more interested in leering at her exposed breast and the white skin of her belly that is not covered by the folds of lavender cloth. She can count in very small number how many of the men before her are truly interested in the art. One such man catches her eye and grins at her, glancing at her with an appraising eye and a gentle nod of appreciation rather than objectification. He goes back to his work. He is ugly. She already likes him.

She hurries when the session is over and she is finally given the freedom to dress. She needn't have rushed; he is standing outside of little dressing curtain with a small smile, and she takes his arm when he crooks it.

"You make a lovely Aphrodite, Mademoiselle. I fear the pieces will be too beautiful for display."

She smiles at him and arches a brow with the hoarse laugh of a grisette. "I fear they will be too vulgar, considering the eyes on some of those men."

"You speak truth. Some have very little respect for the body in art, and even less for the body in life." He bows a little as he holds the door open for her as they step out onto the street. "I, however, do have those respects, as I am blessed with a visage such as the one I own, and, like Pygmalion, I must instead find appreciation in beauty in the faces and skin of others. And while some say the face is no judge of character, I say who cares? The beauty of the face is that it does not divulge what darkness or lightness may be within. There is no expectation with a face. There is only observation and appreciation."

This little speech finished, he stops short. They are standing underneath the awning of some cafe, and she looks up at him with an amused glance. "You speak quite a lot for an artist. Most I've met seem to be the sit-and-stare types. You have some conversation in you. Or, at least, speech."

He shrugs. "My silence was bred out of me with the unfortunate luck of a wealthy father and a mother with a fondness for stories. Quiet was a thick foe to encounter." His hands clench and unclench at his sides, and she wonders if he is lying. Then he shakes himself, as if the words coming out of his mouth had not been entirely his decision. He smiles at her again, this time showing crooked, yellowing teeth. "As we seem to have made the mutual decision to honour your goddess, I suppose I should like to know my Aphrodite's name. Your Hephaestus is called Grantaire."

"Floréal is my name. Shall we go to your rooms for the night?"

"I am an artist. My rooms are hardly fit for myself, much less hosting a lady."

"To mine, then. My quarters may be small, but they are at least appropriate for an affair."

He follows her through the twisting streets, pushing past clumps of students and rags of beggars and a parade of carts until they reach her tiny attic, cramped as it is, with a single window on either side of the room and a tiny flowerpot containing violets on one sill. Still, it is bright and cheerful with a bed pressed against one wall and small working table against the other, bundles of cloth and a tin of eyelets spread out on its surface. A chest sits beneath the window, and upon it sits a few folded garments and a low pile of books. Grantaire notices them and picks up the topmost one.

"Ah, you are well read?"

"Those are from the library. I am teaching myself history and philosophy in order to perhaps find a man to at least offer something extra for the end of every month."

He scoffs. "You are well aware that they care far less for your mind than your face and body."

"I am. And yet I wish for education." She sits upon the bed and he joins her. "Women can be privy to a mind as well as men."

"They can and should be." He puts the book back in its original position. "If you are ever in need of a volume, I can supply you."

"Libraries are far more faithful lenders than artists or drunks."

"And bankers are far more successful thieves than men cloaked in night. Libraries know nothing but empty words, they hold books hostage for nothing. A man is more likely to give you a book with words of value."

She likes him, this man who talks simply for the sake of getting the words out rather than to impress. But she remembers their original intention and presses a hand to his knee. "Did we not come here to worship Aphrodite, not Athena? Come, Grantaire, let us give her her rites."

He smiles and acquiesces and they begin to undress. She is not surprised that his ugliness extends beyond his face; he was not subtle in his metaphors in his earlier speeches. He is hairy in a way that might frighten those of centuries previous into believing him the son of a wolf, and his body is nowhere near lean or smooth. Even his legs are slightly bowed, knees knobby and crooked as he joins her on the bed. She is, however, surprised at his gentleness, at how his broad hands caress her skin and his lips brush instead of bite. She has to knee him gently in the side when he slides between her legs.

"I am not made of glass, you know. Come now, a little rough handling is what we're used to. Handle some baron's daughter like a dove, but not me."

He nods and she surges upward to kiss him, to bite at his lips, to show that she means what she says. They both grunt as he pushes inside her, and her grin is the smile of a big cat; his is a hungry wolf. He bites at the angle where her neck and shoulder meet; she moans and scratches angry red welts down his back in responses, her hips rocking forward to push him deeper. They move together, panting, until his thrusts falter and he buries himself inside her as he comes with a groan, continuing to move until she twitches and bucks herself and they collapse together on the mattress.

"I'm surprised," She acknowledges breathlessly. "I took you for an inexperienced lover."

He laughs without bitterness. "Most do. However, one does not have to have the beauty of Aphrodite to have the charm of Odysseus." He sits up after a moment and begins to gather his clothing and dress. "It is getting late, so I will leave you. I live in the Quartier Latin, and you work for Madame Michaud. Perhaps we shall see each other again."

"Perhaps." For once, she would not mind it.

He does find her again, a few days later. In fact, he is waiting for her outside as she departs for lunch. He crooks his arm as she peers at him. "Care to join me for lunch? I shall pay for the meal."

She's not going to pass up free lunch, and takes his arm with a smile. "I did not think we'd meet again quite so soon."

"I was on a promenade. I thought I might take you out if you were in."

They enter the cafe and sit, coffee and food are ordered, and they talk of the things she's learning in her books, until a thought interrupts her and tumbles its way rudely out of her mouth. "I hope you are not thinking we may take up relations after the other night."

He pauses, spoon halfway to his lips, and a genuine laugh startles out of him. "No! No, mon amie. I am not one for romantic relations, or anything of that sort. I am more Don Juan than Casanova. Mere friendship would be quite enough, if you are willing."

She thinks back to their conversations, his offers of assistance and books, his willingness to talk to her about things of intellect. "I'm willing. You seem a good acquaintance to have."

He smiles at her, an open, friendly thing that seems rare-used and delicate. They fall into conversation again. Later, when they have finished their meal and it's time for her to go back to her work, she finds a little sketch of her likeness which he has drawn with the dregs of his coffee on the paper place-mat with the end of his spoon. She tucks it into the side of her boot with a small smile.

\-------

A small painting of Dike precedes him into the house, and she takes it with a glare. "What is this meant to be?"

"An apology," Grantaire says, and he smells a little of wine, though not as much as he could. "An apology for the insults I brought to you and whatever possible loss of friendship from your sisters I have brought upon you. An allowance of justice of whatever you see fit."

She rolls her eyes and pulls him inside. "No damage was done. They thought you only an absurd drunk-- which you are-- and laughed and teased and forgot about it by the time the day was done."

They've known each other for over a year now, and she is used to his dramatics and his mistakes and his apologies. It doesn't take much for her to forgive him. She knows when he truly means the things he says and when he is only talking to fill the silence or to drown his own noise.

She leads him to the one chair at her work table, sitting him down and moving a few folded chemises away in order to perch on the chest under the window. Grantaire puts his head in his hands and frowns.

"Today I saw a woman thrown onto the streets by her husband for wanting the comfort of a job as a seamstress rather than a waitress. People trust other people far too easily, I say. It only comes to a sad end. Trust in a human is like trust in the weather; it will always rain on the days you need it to be clear, and no amount of praying or wishing can change it. Trust is a sieve that should be kept empty, not filled only to slowly filter away. Disappointment, too, is inevitable. People put such stake in the future and in others. Why do so when everything will only fall short of your expectations? Better to set the bar low and be surprised, or simply expect nothing at all. People's anger at disappointments is far too great for the act; they should be ready for it rather than surprised. I am not Diogenes with a lantern in the day looking for an honest man. I don't need to make a show to prove that no one is honest. It's all laid out in front of me. Iago is only "honest Iago" to prove all the more his knavery. Humans are only dishonest and shameful to prove all the more the depravity of their humanness. You are born and you live only to be disappointed and to find that nothing is truly attainable if you want it, and everything will be torn down in the end. Why spit on a beggar when you can spit on a banker? The result will be the same, only the degrees will change. Hate's a human trait more than love will ever be, and humans are the only creature who ever dare to do such a silly thing as hope."

He stops abruptly, as if interrupting himself, and she waits for him to continue, but he only picks at a scab on the side of his hand and sighs. His eyes are sunken too deep in shadow, but she knows the shades that hide there.

"Come on, now, Grantaire." She prompts, tugging him in the direction of her bed. "Let us take your mind off your troubles. To be literarily crude, let us make the beast with two backs."

"And let it be Laelaps, then." He mutters, and they shed their clothes together as they kiss, running hands across each other's skin, searching for something that has no name.

He presses inside her slowly, not trying to be gentle, but as if he is trying to lose himself inside of her and make sure of his own disappearance. He keeps his eyes shut so she cannot see into them. She kisses him, presses her fingers into his skin, bites marks into his flesh, whatever he needs. He is a little drunk, and he is very sad, and it takes him too long to find his release, but she lets him, because he is a friend and she is willing.

He buries his face in her neck when he finally moves out of her, and she curls herself protectively around him, humming some nonsensical made-up lullaby she heard once. He is fallen from the smiling crudely-shaped gentleman she first met, tumbled now into the form of a weary, pain-ridden cynical shadow that hides in a glass and words of the page. He sighs into her skin and his breathing deepens, and she wonders if he'll ever manage to right himself.

Their clothes are a tangled bundle on the floor, and she knows it will be a hassle to sort them out in the morning. Already the ribbons of her stay have become wrapped in Grantaire's shirt, the already-dirty cloth of her dress crushed under one of his boots. Soon, it will all smell of old wine and sorrow. She does not mind, so long as his presence remains.

She sits up against the headboard, watching the light from the candle play across Grantaire's back where he sleeps beside her. He is a great nuisance, horribly aggravating, but she lets him stay because he is loyal, because she knows he is lonely and far too sad, and because even though he is a pain, she does love him so.


End file.
